Hordes

Game Summary

Hordes is a games produced by Privateer Press. It is a tabletop miniatures combat game set in the Iron Kingdoms. Hordes shares this universe with Warmachine, but plays slightly differently. Where Warmachine is more of a resource management game, Hordes is more of a risk management game. The game plays with a warlock as the leader of your army (which pretty much the same as a warcaster in Warmachine), with supporting monsters (called warbeasts, which play the same role as warjacks in Warmachine) and infantry. A warbeast may be forced to do special attacks or do more damage during its turn, but doing so builds up fury. The warlock can remove it at the start of your next turn and use it to cast spells, which you actually need to because although Warlocks have a starting fury stat they can only generate addition fury by damaging themselves, but if you've generated too much you risk your warbeast 'tarding out and screwing you over.

Factions

Hordes has four playable factions and mercenary sub-faction: Trollbloods, Circle Orboros, Legion of Everblight and The Skorne, with Minions as the sub-faction.

Trollbloods

The Trollbloods are a race of half-trolls (though they're more comparable to Orcs from Warcraft then the typical fantasy troll) that use various species of full-blooded trolls for their warbeasts, the bigger ones being more like typically fantasy trolls. The army focuses on very durable models who have the ability to regenerate some of the wounds they have suffered. They also have access to lots of buffs to stack up on so they can end up with a front line packing absurd stats. Every Trollblood army has the same tactic at its core: advance. Advance some more. Kick the shit out of whatever's in range. Repeat.

Circle Orboros

The Circle are a group of very powerful druids who are trying to keep their god from destroying the world. The druids use giant werewolves, kung-fu goatmen, and wood-and-stone constructs for their warbeasts, and focus on strong casting. Circle armies are also freakishly fast. The Circle tends to focus on terrain manipulation, as almost all of its units can move across rough terrain without penalty. Aside from the relatively slow, durable constructs, Circle units tend to be quite fragile, and typically have limited hitting power, relying on army synergies for good attacks.

Legion of Everblight

The Legion of Everblight are an army of dragonspawn controlled by the great dragon Everblight. The army has very powerful warbeasts which tend to focus on shooting abilities, which are all different forms of dragonspawn that look somewhat like fire-breathing Tyranids crossed with western dragons, except they don't have eyes. It also fields units of corrupted Nyss elves from the north. The Legion excels at sudden precision strikes, but is not especially defensive. They're also fucking warped and twisted and many of their units inspire fear in the enemy and the few non-freakish units on their own side. Also notable is their intense love of having eyeless monsters.

The Skorne

The Skorne are a race of beings who have evolved in the harsh deserts of the east and now seek to conquer the rest of the world. They are Japanese/Chinese aesthetically, but their unit names all have Greece-Roman influences, inspired but have a no bullshit, nihilistic attitude and belief that they use to kick shit out of anything that comes from the fact that they know life after death for them sucks. They use 6-armed elephant-like creatures, basilisks and cyclopes for their warbeasts, and some dinosaurs. The Skorne focus on very highly armored infantry and high damaging warbeasts, and have on average the slowest models in Hordes or Warmachine. Also, they field tortured baby elephants to demoralize their foes. If that isn't awesome, I don't know what is.

Minions

Minions are just a bunch of freelancers that can be hired out by other factions, mostly they're like a low-tech version of Warmachine's Mercenary faction. That said they have two possible armies. Either redneck alligator people or redneck pig people. They lack the model for every rule-breaking exploit that the Merc's get and they lack any warlock/warcaster that is as good as the merc 'casters.

• Gatormen have tough infantry and excel at beating up living models, but have some difficulties with high armor, non-living models like warjacks. They have a few tricks to mitigate this problem, though (Bloody Barnabas' Swamp Pit spell and Calaban's Parasite spell, to name a few). They also love them some undead somethin' good.
• The farrow are pig people, which is awesomely ridiculous. They have some awesome warlocks with vastly different play styles, but no fucking variation in their faction list. Still, the War Hog is beastly enough to do the job in nearly every occasion.